Healey, Eric

Unfortunately, this Falcons team just doesn't have a second line to speak of, and it's very difficult for them to come from 2 goals down as a result.

SPR-2
MAN-4

Karri Ramo stopped 28 of 31 shots faced in the loss. Springfield got 1 goal and 1 assist from Daniel Corso and a pair of helpers from Eric Healey. The other Falcons goal came from a suddenly red hot Doug O'Brien who has had goals in three of the last four games. Norm Milley also chipped in an individual helper.

Jonathan Boutin stopped 23 of 24 shots faced for the win and actually held a shutout up until just 3:11 left in the game's final frame. The Falcons' goals came from Blair Jones and Eric Healey with assists to Norm Milley and Matt Smaby. Boutin and Healey were named first and third stars of the game, respectively. Springfield outshot Worcester 30-24 in the game.

The win moves the Falcons 1 point behind Portland and Providence which are currently tied with 46 points in the standings and occupying the 3rd and 4th spots (the final two playoff spots) in the Atlantic Division.

Karri Ramo started the game and was in net until the 9:50 mark of the second period when he gave way to Jonathan Boutin for the final 10:10 of the period before returning for the third period. Boutin ended up taking the loss allowing a pair of power play goals on 3 shots. Ramo stopped 16 of 18 shots faced in his portion of the game. No word on if Ramo suffered any minor injury as of yet. Randy Rowe and David Spina had the Falcons' goals with assists going to Dan Cavanaugh, Mitch Fritz, Eric Healey and Daniel Corso. The Falcons did manage to outshoot Manchester 33-25 in the game buy allowed the Monarchs to go 3-for-5 on the power play giving up 3 PP goals in the span of 5 minutes in the second period to lose the game.

The Falcons drop to 1 game under .500 and are now in last place in the Atlantic Division. That's the bad news. The good news is they're only 2 points out of 4th place which represents the final playoff spot, so if Norm Milley and/or Justin Keller can get back in the lineup posthaste and the Falcons can find a way out of this tailspin, they're not sunk yet.

Unfortunately they don't award points in the standings for improvement.

PRO-3
SPR-2

Karri Ramo stopped 23 of 26 shots faced in the loss. David Spina led the Falcons with 1 goal and 1 assist while veteran Eric Healey notched 2 assists. Doug O'Brien scored the other Falcons goal and Daniel Corso had an individual helper. Obviously the Falcons were much more competitive tonight than last weekend when they were shellacked 7-2 by Providence, but the team is still in desperate need of wins.

Jonathan Boutin allowed 5 goals on 34 shots faced including 4 goals in a second period that saw the birds get outshot 22-4 by Hartford. Damn. Andy Delmore led the Falcons with a pair of first period power play goals and Maxime Boisclair added his first career AHL goal, a power play talley. Individual helpers belonged to Blair Jones, Doug O'Brien, David Spina, Eric Healey, Zdenek Blatny and Matt Smaby. Smaby now has 4 points in his last 7 games. Springfield draws Providence at 4pm tomorrow afternoon. Portland moved back into a tie for 2nd in the Atlantic with a win over Worcester tonight and Hartford, after an abysmal start to their season, has now pulled into third place just 2 points back of the Falcons and Pirates.

There were several very worthy candidates for this month's award, so this was probably the most difficult decision to make in the short history of the Prospect of the Month honor. Four Lightning prospects, two of them overage players, had strong months posting point a game or better paces: Dane Crowley (10 GP, 2-8-10, 24 PIM, +3), Chris Lawrence, (12 GP, 5-7-12, 25 PIM, +5), Eric Healey, (15 GP, 7-11-18, 38 PIM, +3), and Norm Milley, (15 GP, 9-6-15, 42 PIM, +2). Each of these players could've easily won the award, but December was the month of the goaltender in the Lightning prospect system. So without further adieu, this month's winner is...

Steve Stirling's got to coach up these young men to win some of these one goal games.
BIN-4
SPR-3
Sean Burke stopped 30 of 34 in the loss. Eric Healey had a goal and an assist for Falcons and [url=blair-jones]Blair Jones[/url] and [url=norm-milley]Norm Milley[/url] each had a pair of assists. Zdenek Blatny and Andy Delmore had Springfield's other goals while [url=justin-keller]Justin Keller[/url] had an individual helper.
Game sheet from [url=http://stats.theahl.com/stats/game-summary.php?game_id=1002299]TheAHL.com[/url].

Third period collapse drops the Falcons to 1-1.
SPR-3
NOR-6
[url=karri-ramo]Karri Ramo[/url] allowed 4 goals in the span of 3:45 in the third period as the Falcons imploded in their second game of the season. Ramo stopped 28 of 34 shots faced in the loss. Eric Healey led the way offensively for the Falcons scoring two goals while rookie [url=blair-jones]Blair Jones[/url] added 2 assists in the game. Zdenek Blatny scored the team's other goal, on the power play, while Jared Aulin and [url=doug-obrien]Doug O'Brien[/url] had individual helpers.
Game sheet from [url=http://stats.theahl.com/stats/game-summary.php?game_id=1002252]TheAHL.com[/url].